Three CNN staffers have resigned following the publication and subsequent retraction of a story linking a Trump transition team member to the Russia-related investigations.

The piece, published late last week, cited an anonymous source saying the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking into the chief executive of a $10-billion Russian investment fund who met with financier Anthony Scaramucci before the inauguration.

The reporter, Pulitzer-prize nominee Thomas Frank, assistant managing editor Eric Lichtblau (who recently joined from the New York Times) and Lex Haris, the executive editor in charge of investigations, are all out.

"In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story's publication," CNN said in a statement.

Scaramucci threatened a lawsuit, Politico reports, but media companies are used to that and usually ignore such threats. Price of doing business.

If they pulled this down in reaction to that threat, they must have been pretty sure they'd lose.

Meanwhile, Jim Acosta keeps whining that he doesn't get to play pretend Hero of #TheResistance with cameras on in the White House briefings:

.@Acosta temper tantrum proves @CNN is only after political theatrics.